This is how bad things are getting...
"The NSA made me slather my face in make-up... I had slathered the paint on my face in order to hide from computers. The patterns in which I applied the paint were important: To the pixel-calculating machinations of facial recognition algorithms, they transformed my face into a mess of unremarkable pixels. In the computer’s vision, my face caused a momentary burst of confusion. That’s why the patterns are called computer vision dazzle (or CV dazzle). When it works, CV dazzle keeps facial-recognition algorithms from seeing a face...
...more unexpected was what CV dazzle taught me about the physical world. It reminded me of another tech experiment I’d undertaken:
My phone’s Reminders app can tie a message to a specific place, it triggers an alert tone every time a user comes within 500 feet. I’d tried tying these reminders to a different kind of location—the 176 embassies and diplomatic missions in Washington, D.C. Whenever I got within a couple hundred feet of one, my phone sent me a little ping: “Iceland.” “Thailand.” “Equitorial New Guinea.”...
...here is the essence of CV dazzle’s strangeness: The very thing that makes you invisible to computers makes you glaringly obvious to other humans." (more) (official site cvdazzle.com)
Blank Reg would have loved this.
Turkey’s political system appeared to be sinking deeper into crisis on Tuesday, as nearly 70 police officers, some of them senior, were arrested for illegally wiretapping the telephones of senior government figures, including the Prime Minster and the intelligence chief. At least 67 members of the country’s police force were arrested in raids that took place on Tuesday all over Turkey, while warrants have reportedly been issued for over 100 people.
Many of the arrestees were seen being taken away in handcuffs by security personnel, including two former heads of Istanbul police’s counter-terrorism unit. Hadi Salihoglu, Istanbul’s chief prosecutor, said in a written statement issued on Tuesday that the suspects were part of a criminal conspiracy that had wiretapped phones belonging to Turkeys’ Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as well as Hakan Fidan, director of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, known as MİT.
Thousands of other phone lines had also been wiretapped, he added, belonging to journalists and government administrators, including judges and military officials. (more)
A South Park man is being held without bail after investigators say he murdered his mother and stepfather and then disposed of their bodies near the Duwamish River.
Longtime friends of Parenteau say the father of two had become increasingly more paranoid... "He thought they put something in his arm and were bugging his phone. He thought he was Jesus." (more)
Moral: The fear of privacy invasion is serious and deeply felt. When someone mentions it, take it seriously. It doesn't matter if it is real or imagined. It is real to them. Don't ignore the anguish. Try to help.
A "rogue" gynecologist who used tiny cameras to secretly record videos and photos of his patients has forced one of the world's top medical centers to pay $190 million to 8,000 women and girls.
Dr. Nikita Levy was fired after 25 years with the Johns Hopkins Health System in Baltimore in February 2013 after a female co-worker spotted the pen-like camera he wore around his neck and alerted authorities.
Levy committed suicide days later, as a federal investigation led to roughly 1,200 videos and 140 images stored on computers in his home... His suicide — by wrapping his head in a plastic bag with a hose connected to a helium tank — frustrated everyone who wanted to know his motives and see him face justice. (more)
According to a security researcher, undocumented services in iOS allow Apple -- and law enforcement -- to access the contents of any iOS device, including encrypted ones.
Forensic researcher Jonathan Zdziarski has outlined details of how a number of undocumented services in iOS are purportedly used to collect personal data by law enforcement and government agencies, according to ZDNet.
The services, which sport names like "lockdownd," "pcapd" and "mobile.file_relay," are allegedly used to bypass lock screens and collect data from iOS devices, and are accessible by USB and WiFi. (Zdziarski adds "maybe cellular" to that list as well.)
Zdziarski presented his findings at the HOPE/X (Hackers On Planet Earth) conference in New York, where he noted that while Apple has worked hard to make iOS secure against "typical attackers," the company has also ensured that it can "access data on end user devices on behalf of law enforcement. "The end result is that iOS has been made "more secure from everybody except Apple and the government." (more)
"...we got Snowden!"
Russian President Vladimir Putin is denying media reports that he will reopen a Soviet-era base in Cuba used to spy on the United States.
Putin said Thursday there are no plans to resume operations at the Lourdes signals intelligence facility near Havana, after Russian media first reported a day earlier that the two countries provisionally agreed to the deal last week. (more)
Russia is trying to reopen a Cold War-era spy base in Cuba.
During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Cuba earlier this month, Putin and Cuban officials reportedly reached a provisional agreement to reopen the signals intelligence facility in Lourdes, Cuba, south of Havana...
The Lourdes base was first opened in 1964 and was used to intercept communications in the U.S. and throughout the Western Hemisphere. Some estimate that as much as 50 percent of the radio-intercepted intelligence that the Soviet Union collected on the U.S. during the Cold War came from Lourdes. Putin closed the facility back in 2001, citing it as a “goodwill gesture” toward the U.S., which had long expressed concerns about the Russian spy station. However, many analysts believed the real reason behind the decision was the $200 million-a-year rent that Moscow was reportedly paying to Cuba to maintain the base.
According to The Guardian, “the Lourdes facility was the Soviet Union’s largest foreign base, a mere 155 miles from the U.S. coast. It employed up to 3,000 military and intelligence personnel to intercept a wide array of American telephone and radio communications.” (more)
mCouple is something you can download on your Android and iOS devices to keep track of your partners.
So if someone thinks their significant other is cheating on them or if they’re anxious about who their partner is talking to and where he/she is going... (You get the idea.) It works in a two-way fashion, so both the partners need to have it installed on their devices in order to take advantage of it...
...its key concept is that all the history from you device will be accessible on your partner’s device. This means, any call or message you get during your day will be accessible on your partner’s connected smartphone without any bounds.
The same applies for contact entries made by you as well. ...its GPS tracking attribute makes it possible to track every move your partner makes. Facebook hasn’t been kept out of mCouple’s purview as well, with partners having been given the option of viewing all the Facebook chats of their significant others. (more)
FutureWatch: An in-app purchase offer for the Instant Alibi upgrade feature :)
Manything is a free iOS app that lets you convert a spare iPod Touch, iPad, or iPhone into a video surveillance camera. The next part is up to you: either use a second device to view footage remotely and receive alerts and Cloud-saved clips based on motion activity, or simply track what's happening on the Manything Web app. Basically, it works like an IP camera without requiring a separate purchase.
Since Manything just launched an IFTTT channel, you can pair it with Belkin WeMo (or other compatible products) to create DIY home security hacks. Here's how to get started...
(more)
No online communication is for your eyes only in the age of Internet surveillance by government spy agencies. But a leaked British spy catalog has revealed a wide array of online tools designed to also control online communication by doing everything from hacking online polls to artificially boosting online traffic to a particular website.
The spy catalog information developed by the British spy agency GCHQ comes from documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, according to The Intercept. Such documents don't contain much in the way of technical information about how the online spy tools work, but they do reveal a colorful array of code names for methods aimed at both collecting information and manipulating online information seen on websites such as Facebook and YouTube. (more)
Ukraine has released audio from phone calls made between rebels and Russian officers after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. You can listen to it here...
In one of the calls, a rebel is heard to say that “We have just shot down a plane.” A reminder, perhaps, that even if the content they carry is atrocious, there is a time and a place for wiretaps. (more)
500 BC: The Spartans of ancient Greece invented the Scytale to transport hidden messages. Scytales were long, slender rods typically wrapped in a thin strip of papyrus, leather, or parchment.
A message was written on the wrapping, and then the strip was unwound and passed on to a messenger. Only when it was rewound around a rod of the same diameter could the original message be deciphered. (more)
Facebook launched a new app on Thursday, but you can’t get it unless you’re famous. Seriously. Facebook mentions is a new tool that allows celebs to keep constant tabs on what you, your Aunt Helen, the dude who works at your coffee shop, and everyone else in the world are saying about them on Facebook all day in the form of a constantly updating RSS feed! (more)
Gadgets such as tracking devices and wiretapping bugs have been popular products on China's online shopping websites. Their popularity has not waned even after being declared illegal by the Chinese government, which has since begun shutting down businesses selling and using them, reports the Beijing News...
Most of the sellers in Zhongguancun, which has been dubbed "China's Silicon Valley," only offer the devices when clients ask. Some of them have stopped selling these devices after Chinese authorities banned producing and selling wiretapping devices and hidden cameras on May 1. Producing and selling these devices can be punishable by up to three years in jail. People using them can serve up to two years.
The law seems not to have deterred their sale, however. Over thousands of these devices are available on China's leading e-commerce website Taobao at prices ranging from hundreds to thousands of yuan. They are all advertised as "theft or lost item prevention" devices to avoid legal responsibilities. (more)
The use of drones for physical security is limited only by the imagination and battery life, says J. Patrick Murphy, president of LPT Security Consulting.
He envisions drones being used for security purposes in mall parking lots and at oil refineries and other big plants, at hospitals and schools.
Murphy recently had the opportunity to see what camera-mounted drones can offer. He was on an assignment for a Houston-based clinic/pharmaceutical chain, conducting a security assessment of their buildings. As part of that, he needed to do a light(ing) study.
“We went to the parking lot in one location and did a walk-around in the daytime,” Murphy told Security Director News.
Then, he contacted local drone manufacturer and pilot Michael Sclafani of West Fork Drones for a nighttime flyover.
“It just blew me away because of the functionality and maneuverability,” Murphy said of the flyover... With the drone, he was able to see which trees were blocking certain lights and the shadows that resulted. “That’s a story told that I probably would have missed otherwise,” he said. (more)
